What's in a name...part II.

So this morning my cubicle-mates and I held the most interesting, rambling conversation of the type that can only occur among sleep-and-caffeine deprived colleagues at the ungodly hour of 7:30am (speaking of which, I have a caffeine-free colleague, I do not comprehend and think we cannot be friends).

Topics ranged from an Italian bloke who was gifted an espresso machine at age 10 and has lived on no less than 5 espressos prior to 9am ever since (excuse me dad, I'm nearly 40 and still no espresso machine? What's with that?), which then morphed into Italian families often calling multiple children the same name (I won't get into the details of our speculations as to why). Cue a bizarre segue into 'of all the names in the world, and they called him THAT?' conversation.

For example, my cubicle-mate was pressured to call any female offspring 'Flavia' (sorry to any Flavia's out there, but UGH). Almost in rebellion she popped out three boys before producing a girl which she named something as opposite of Flavia as she could get. Sorry monster-in-law.

I've talked about this whole naming phenomenen before in What's in a name, having a look into what your name means and whether you are born your name or BECOME it.

However with so many names up for grabs, it's become bleedingly obvious that naming your child is clearly a completely subjective thing. What's one person's trash and all that.

A few years ago a local radio station held a 'Save Barry' campaign. Apparently Barry's are dying out as no-one is naming their kids Bazza anymore. For shame. No offence Barry(s), but is that a bad thing?

A Kiwi friend's sister (living in Australia) named her son Dexter, unprepared for the unintentional hilarity in response to the name. Anyone living in Australia in the 80s will always and forever associate Dexter with the Perfect Match robot and bimbos with big hair ready to hook up for the weekend and then tell the world the bloke was bad in bed.

What a legacy. Poor kid.

Funnily enough I then went down to the coffee van only to engage in a conversation with the girl who'd held a 'freshie' last night who sadly, has been dubbed Frederick. I just hope you grow up cute, Fred. You may need it.

Now you're probably coming to the conclusion that I'm a name nazi. You might be right, but there's plenty of names I don't mind at all. I'm also not against the slightly-different name either, provided there's some kind of cool factor.  I deliberately chose Elijah as it didn't register on any top 100 'most popular' lists anywhere and of course Cathy is (in)famous for calling her son Seven. Let's be honest, we all silently went 'huh?' at the time but it completely suits him and is unique and cool.

If you want a great giggle, head on over to About Stupid Kid Names to see what I'm talking about. As they say on their home page:

'This site is our forum for the merciless mocking of parents who give their children stupid names. Note that our intent is not to make fun of children themselves, because — well, that’d just be assholish. We have children ourselves, for God’s sake. What do you think we are, monsters?'

Don't even get me started on bastardised spelling or heaven forbid, the stupid little inflection thingies over certain letters. Unless you're French or whatever, it just looks stupid.

For God's sake, I grew up with the bog standard moniker 'Rebecca' and people couldn't spell THAT. So please don't get offended when we mispronounce/misspell Laqueeessha or Madysonn or whatever the hell your addled, post-birth brain plucked as the 'perfect' name at the time.

And I've said it before, I'll say it again - if you call your daughter Destiny, what on earth is her stripper name meant to be? Thoughtless.

See I told you not to get me started.

So what is your name? What have you called your kid? And apologies if you have a daughter named Destiny, but hey, you know it's true.

xx